The Great Salt Lake Trail eBook

“Chint-zille is foolish. Let the Long-Knife
measure the fire-water, and she shall be yours.”

“No, Long-Knife will not do this; Chint-zille
should never be the wife of the man she does not love.”

The old chief pleaded for a long time with the trader
to take the girl and give him the liquid, but the
trader was inexorable; he would not form any such
tangling alliance, so the old chief failed to get
the liquor, and he left the house with mortification
and shame depicted on his withered face.

CHAPTER VI.
THE MORMONS.

Utah was settled in 1847 by a religious community
of people generally known by the name of Mormons,
but they style themselves, “The Latter-day Saints
of the Church of Jesus Christ.”

In the great valley of a vast inland sea, the existence
of which was unknown to the world seventy-five years
ago, whose surroundings were a desert in the most
rigid definition of the term, a great commonwealth
has been established unparalleled in the history of
its origin by that of any of the civilized countries
of the world.

Out of the most desolate of our vast arid interior
areas, in less than half a century has been evolved
not only a magnificent garden spot, but a great city
with all the adjuncts of our most modern civilization.
Rich in its architecture, progressive in its art, with
a literature that is marvellous when the conditions
from which it has sprung are seriously considered,
the Mormon community meets all the demands of our
ever advancing civilization.

Neither the love of gold, nor the cupidity of conquest,
those
characteristics which have subordinated other portions
of the
New World to the restless ambition of man, were the
causes that have
revolutionized both the physical character and the
social conditions
of the now wealthy and prosperous state of Utah.
As Bancroft very
forcibly states:
Utah
was settled upon an entirely new idea of God’s
revelation
to
the world. Old faiths have been worked over and
over;
colonies
have been built upon those tenets, but never before
have
any results comparable to those which characterize
that
of
the Mormon faith been attained, in founding a community,
based
as it is upon an entirely new religion.

Originating east of the Mississippi, perhaps no sect
in modern times has been so persecuted as was that
of the Mormons in their early days. So great
and unbearable had this persecution become that it
was determined by their leaders to seek some remote
spot where they could worship according to their own
ideas, without fear of molestation.

The Mormon emigration to Utah was seriously considered
by Brigham Young years before 1847, the date of their
exodus. It is claimed that he was but carrying
out the plans of Joseph Smith, who early in 1842 said
that his people “would yet be driven to the Rocky
Mountains, where they would be able to build a city
of their own free from all interference.”